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The long-rumoured death of the iPhone's headphone jack has left everybody wondering: What's going to become of Apple's EarPods? Well, they'll probably go wireless, but according to one analyst, they won't come with your iPhone. They'll be sold separately -- and they might be expensive. KGI Securities' Ming-Chi Kuo believes that Apple will announce a pair of high-end "AirPod" earbuds tomorrow as a premium accessory for iPhone 7 buyers. They won't come in the box like Apple's current earbuds, he says, and may not even use Bluetooth.

Across the land, armchair speculators are all talking about one thing: if we'll get a new Apple Watch this year, and what features it'll get. But Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at KGI Securities, believes that his wild speculation might be worth paying attention to. He's told his clients -- as reported by MacRumors and AppleInsider -- that a second Apple Watch will arrive in the second half of this year. His note suggests that the device will get a faster processor, GPS, barometer, better waterproofing and a bigger battery.

Pokémon Go is still going strong, despite privacy scares and feature bugs. According to a report by App Annie, it has now been installed over 100 million times, up 25 million from late July. While that number is from an analyst report and the actual number of downloads could be slightly different, it's not that hard to believe. As TechCrunch noted, the game was downloaded 50 million times on Android within only 19 days according to previous estimates, whereas it took 77 days for ColorSwitch to get to that point.

I think we all know that Destiny is going to be a very big launch when it happens this September, but one analyst has put a number to that feeling: 15 to 20 million copies sold.

Cowen & Company Analyst Doug Creutz has been tracking the progress of Destiny, saying that it has topped the company's rating chart: "We continue to believe that Destiny is a lock to sell at least 15 million copies. And we now view 20 million copies as increasingly likely."

Creutz said that Destiny will help to sell PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles and predicted that the game will be purchased alongside with many of them. He also noted that Destiny may cannibalize sales from the Call of Duty franchise.

Along with Kuo's theory that there will be two different sizes of the wearable, the analyst makes a downright shocking claim that Apple's watch will be priced as high as "several thousand US dollars." As usual, this sketchy claim was treated as all but confirmation that Tim Cook is indeed poised to drop a wrist-worn device as expensive as a used car on the world, and the headlines flowed forth.

Do you know who would buy a $3,000 iWatch? Nobody. Ok, that's probably not true; I imagine there are a half dozen executives growing tired of their Rolexes, but that's never been Apple's market. Apple makes premium products, and the iPad, iPhone, and Mac are often pricier than the competition, but they're priced to be desirable. Apple isn't in the business of cheap products, and they're also not going to try to compete with Louis Vuitton.

Kuo adds a little bit of flavor to the iWatch rumors by adding that the device itself will have a "fashionable appearance" and "we predict the iWatch casing and band will come in various materials." Talk about painting with broad strokes. By adding obscure, meaningless details like this, Kuo's overall iWatch prediction list looks a little bit better, even after we discover that the most critical bullet point -- the price -- was a total miss.

So if and when the iWatch is announced, and we all discover it's priced in the ballpark of Apple's other mobile gadgets, will this be counted as a massive error by Kuo? Of course not. The world will brush it off and the next time the analyst comes calling with a wild guess, he will still be described as "almost always correct."

It's long been true that sales of Apple mobile products follow cycles. This started with the iPod, which, to this day, still displays a spike in sales around the holidays, and has become quite visible with the iPhone, which shows spikes in sales around every product refresh. Freelance analyst Benedict Evans has published a post about the cyclicality of the unit sales figures for all of Apple's mobile products and notes that "the iPad is now starting to become just as cyclical as the iPhone."

As you can see from Evans' chart at the top of this post, and as Evans states in his article, "sales are being driven by both the calendar season and the age of the product." Yesterday's earning call pointed out that iPad sales were down, but as Evans notes, "it's now a 9-month-old product" (in reference to the fourth-generation iPad and iPad mini).

The bottom line of Evans' analysis is this: "You can't really tell how Apple is doing from the mid-cycle sales numbers. So much of the revenue and the momentum is determined by the December quarter that you really have to wait."

Analyst firm Cowen & Company estimates high-profile March launches God of War: Ascension and Gears of War: Judgment both sold far less than their predecessors. The firm projects (via GI.biz) that Ascension sold 360,000 in the US during March and Judgment moved 425,000, down from first-month sales of 1.1 million for God of War 3 and over three million in Gears of War 3's first week of availability.

A much better March for Tomb Raider and BioShock Infinite is predicted. The Crystal Dynamics reboot has amassed 696,000 sales in the US over March, while the firm says BioShock Infinite is near 665,000 in just 10 days.

Cowen & Company predicts NPD data for March will show a decline in software and hardware spend compared to last year, though the firm is hopeful the launches of StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm and SimCity will help contribute to a substantial increase in PC game sales.
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analystcowen-and-companygod-of-war-ascensionmicrosoftnpdpcplaystationps3salesxboxTue, 16 Apr 2013 18:15:00 -040011|20542605https://www.tuaw.com/2013/03/26/fortune-apple-may-see-first-quarter-of-negative-income-growth-s/https://www.tuaw.com/2013/03/26/fortune-apple-may-see-first-quarter-of-negative-income-growth-s/https://www.tuaw.com/2013/03/26/fortune-apple-may-see-first-quarter-of-negative-income-growth-s/#comments

Apple investors may want to brace themselves for an onslaught of negative headlines when Apple reports its Q2 2013 earnings in the coming month. According to Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog, Apple is expected to report its first year-over-year decline in income in 10 years.

Much of this decline can attributed to lowered gross margins on products. As noted by DeWitt, Apple's gross margin in Q2 2012 sat at an impressive 47.37 percent, while analyst estimates for the 2013 quarter suggest it could fall to as low as 37.5 percent. Though Apple is projected to deliver another quarter of record revenue, this drop in profit margin threatens to drag down Apple's quarterly income.

February is usually not a great month for the companies that supply Apple with its iOS and Mac device parts (Chinese New Year usually falls right in that month, and production in China always take a big downturn as people celebrate there). But this particular past February was especially bad, according to reports: Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White says that the suppliers for Apple that he tracks saw their sales data fall 31 percent over the past month, as compared to the usual 8 percent drop in past years. That makes for the worst February on record for Apple's suppliers, which may or may not soon have an impact on Apple.

Now, with Apple's suppliers showing low sales data, that could mean more opportunity for Apple to step in with its big pile of cash and make sure that it has more components than ever to build new devices with, so it's not entirely clear that this will be a bad thing for the company from Cupertino. But of course Apple depends on these suppliers, and if they suffer increased economic pressure for any reason, Apple could experience consequences for its own business.

TechCrunch reports that Apple has seen a huge gain in sales in India -- up to 400 percent -- in July through September 2012, but still has a long way to go compared to its competitors in the region.

According to the research firm IDC (based on figures collated from that time period), Apple isn't in the top five of handset market share. Samsung is at the top, with a 46 percent share, and HTC at No. 5, with a 6.6 percent market share. Additionally, web browsing stats reveal that Apple has a tiny percentage of current mobile web traffic.

However, this is not so surprising given that in an earnings call last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he didn't see much opportunity for growth in India in the short-term. But that's not to say Apple isn't scouting the area and preparing for growth. India is a huge market, with less than 10 percent smartphone penetration.

TechCrunch reports that Apple's sales growth is attributed to a growth in Apple's India team, from 50 to 150 in the last six months, as well as distribution partnerships with Redington and Ingram Micro. Apple is also making its iPhone easier to purchase with installment-based payment schemes through its retail partners, including the nation wide retail chain, TheMobileStore.

After Apple's earnings call yesterday the company's stock took a sizable hit. This, of course, was due in large part to the company underperforming analysts' revenue expectations. But rather than rail on Apple, Fortune argues that Wall Street's Apple analysts performed worse than the company itself, and it's worked up a rather handy chart to prove its point.

Ranking a whopping 68 analysts based on how close their predictions came to hitting Apple's true numbers, the chart shows just how dramatically earnings predictions can vary. For example, Apple reported revenue of $54.51 billion, but analyst predictions ranged from $51.70 billion to $65.69 billion. Take a look at some more failed predictions, ranging from insanely optimistic to depressingly dismal, on Fortune.

Looking at the December NPD results, you may have noticed that the 3DS's New Super Mario Bros. 2 placed in the top ten sellers in the US, but New Super Mario Bros. U was nowhere to be found, nor was any other Wii U exclusive.

Analyst Doug Creutz of Cowen & Company's interpretation of the Wii U's early software sales is troubling. "Totals for the November-December period were -43% lower than software sales for the Wii and -50% lower than those for the GameCube," Creutz reports. It's not the most auspicious start for the new hardware. The only US Wii U software sales number to be released by Nintendo is 580,000 units of New Super Mario Bros. U, sold in November and December.

Worth noting is that the Wii U offers full games through its eShop, sales of which would not be counted toward NPD software sales totals. Like all digital game sales, the numbers are unknown, but there is some unknown additional commerce taking place that wasn't on the Wii and GameCube.

Joystiq has contacted Nintendo for a comment on the report, but has yet to hear back at the time of publishing.
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analystcowen-and-companydoug-creutznintendosaleswii-uMon, 14 Jan 2013 18:45:00 -050011|20428580https://www.tuaw.com/2013/01/02/analyst-apple-top-stock-pick-of-2013-despite-setbacks/https://www.tuaw.com/2013/01/02/analyst-apple-top-stock-pick-of-2013-despite-setbacks/https://www.tuaw.com/2013/01/02/analyst-apple-top-stock-pick-of-2013-despite-setbacks/#comments

Topeka Capital Markets financial analyst Brian White has weighed in on Apple's 2013 outlook and sees a bright future for the tech giant despite a slight stumble as 2012 entered the record books. According to Apple Insider, White named Apple his firm's top stock pick for the coming year, predicting that its share price will recover from the hit it took in late 2012 because investor confidence remains strong. The company's stock never did hit the lofty US$1,001 per share that White predicted last April, however.

Some of White's rationale for the upbeat outlook is admittedly a bit out there. He expects Apple to offer multiple sizes of its next handset to appeal to emerging markets (despite the fact that it will have the iPhone 5 and 4S for those) and, not quite as far-fetched, that the iPhone will be available in colors beyond the current white/silver and black/charcoal versions when it hits shelves.

Knowing is half the battle, folks. Sometimes the process of going from not knowing to knowing can be boring and slow -- but not this time, thanks to the magic of infographics!

The intelligent folks over at Newzoo have compiled a relatively brief infographic about the state of the MMO market, from the fact that there are 400,000,000 MMO players world-wide (of whom about 180,000,000 are strictly free-to-play patrons) to the fact that 30% of Australia's paying players are female. Last year, the market was split nearly 50/50 between free-to-play and pay-to-play games, but has since switched to a 53% to 47% advantage for free-to-play.

Check out the full infographic after the break to feast your eyes and your brain, or head over to an interview with Newzoo's CEO to absorb knowledge the old-fashioned way.

A lot of things can change in just a year in the world of mobile communications, so predicting where the major smartphone platforms will be four years down the road is tricky. Nevertheless, BGR reports that the International Data Corporation has made its official predictions for how smartphone ownership trends will look in 2016, and surprisingly there isn't a whole lot of change.

According to the firm's data, the current smartphone market share looks like this:

Android: 68.3%

iOS: 18.8%

BlackBerry: 4.7%

Windows Phone 2.6%

Linux: 2.0%

Other: 3.6%

In 2016, the company believes the spread will look like this:

Android: 63.8%

iOS: 19.1%

Windows Phone 11.4%

BlackBerry: 4.1%

Linux: 1.5%

Other: 0.1%

As you can see, Android is projected to remain at the front of the pack, though it loses a bit of ground. iOS looks to remain in second place, picking up just a bit more of the market along the way. IDC expects Windows Phone will overtake BlackBerry and move into third place, while Linux and other options fall further behind.

These aren't exactly bold predictions, but the firm does note that if Apple decides to offer a lower-priced new model into the marketplace, things could change. It looks like we'll only have to wait four years to see if the predictions pan out.

Third quarter figures from Gartner are out, reporting worldwide mobile phone sales slowed again in Q3 2012. Smartphones, however, showed a 46.9 percent increase in sales over the same period last year, with 169.2 million units sold. As you would imagine, Apple and Samsung sold the most, accounting for almost half of all worldwide smartphone purchases. Nokia sales declined during the quarter, and with only 7.2 million of its smartphones filling customers' hands, its ranking in this segment plummeted from third to seventh (although Gartner expects sales of the new Lumiadevices should soften the fall in Q4). In contrast, Apple had a solid quarter, with sales up 36.2 percent year-on-year, which is expected to continue into the fourth quarter as the iPhone 5 launches in more markets. Samsung didn't do too bad either, increasing sales by 18.6 percent year-on-year thanks to its Galaxy range (although it's important to note this figure is for total phone sales, not just smartphones). In the OS wars, Android continued to grow its market share up to 72.4 percent, with iOS taking the second spot with 13.9 percent. Stalwart RIM made a leap into the top three with its BlackBerry OS, as aging Symbian saw its usage decline further. If you want to pour over the figures yourself, check out the source below.

Update: We've tinkered with the post to remove some confusion between total mobile phone sales and smartphone sales. None of the figures have been changed.

Samsung may dominate Apple in smartphone market share, but the opposite is true for tablets. Third quarter figures from IDC suggest the tablet market grew by 6.7 percent during those three months, and 49.5 percent since the same period last year. Apple was responsible for over half of the 27.8 million shipments worldwide, but lost a significant amount of market share, dropping to 50.4 percent from 65.5 percent in the second quarter. IDC attributes this to consumers holding off for the iPad mini, but expects some of these procrastinators will choose Android tablets due to the relatively high entry price of $329 for the mini. Samsung was second on the leaderboard, shipping over five million tablets and increasing its market share to 18.4 percent, mainly driven by Galaxy Tab and Note 10.1 sales. Amazon and ASUS also had a solid quarter thanks to the Kindle Fires and Nexus 7, respectively, shipping around 2.5 million tablets a piece. Lenovo's presence in China meant it closed out the top five, with modest growth from the same period last year. Apple may still be the biggest player in the tablet market thanks to the iPad brand, but with the significant decline in market share this quarter, it seems IDC's predictions might slowly be coming true.

IDC's third quarter figures are in, complete with a few unexpected shake-ups. The entire cellphone market grew 2.4% over the same time last year, but smartphones drove the majority of that, showing growth of 45.3% and beating the analysts' expectations. Of the 179.7 million smartphones shipped, Samsung and Apple devices accounted for almost half of them, with the companies retaining their number one and two positions in the market, respectively. IDC notes that iPhone shipments didn't increase, but this is somewhat expected given the latest iteration was released only a short time before the end of the quarter. What we find particularly interesting is that Nokia was ousted from the top five smartphone players and replaced by RIM. Whether Nokia's upcoming Windows Phone 8 devices will put it back in contention remains to be seen, as does the effect BB10 and RIM's new handsets will have on the market. ZTE finished fourth in the list thanks to increased sales in North America, with HTC rounding up the top five vendors with continued uptake of its power devices. With a bunch of new handsets coming to the table and the holiday season fast approaching, look out for even more surprises in the fourth quarter numbers, due early next year.

We don't often summarize market share in one word, but: ouch. Both Gartner and IDC have trotted out their preliminary estimates for PC market share in the third quarter, and the two agree that this summer was a dire one for the traditional computer. Outside of ASUS and Lenovo, whose price-focused strategies and key acquisitions kept them ahead of rivals, virtually every major vendor saw its PC shipments collapse versus a year ago, often by more than 10 percent. Total worldwide shipments declined by more than 8 percent in either estimate -- enough to make a flat second quarter seem rosy by comparison. Lenovo took the top spot in Gartner's study, although IDC is counting workstations and kept HP in its usual lead.

As for the US, it's almost better that we don't look. Gartner and IDC believe that the American market sank by respective 13.8 or 12.4 percent amounts, and the steep global declines repeated themselves in the one country for everyone but Lenovo. Even a market share gain for Apple came only because its shipments dropped at a gentler rate than most of its peers. Whether it's the US or worldwide, don't assume that inventory clearances ahead of Windows 8 were the only factors at work, though. Both research teams point to continuing world economic troubles as influences, and IDC contends that buyers are still skipping PCs in favor of smartphones and mobile tablets. There's often a jump in computer sales between the summer and the fall, especially with a new OS on the way, but we wouldn't count on a return to the halcyon days.

Gartner is reporting that worldwide mobile phone sales this quarter dropped 2.3 percent as buyers postponed upgrades and held out for the next big thing. Of the 419 million units sold in the last three months, Samsung, Nokia and Apple unsurprisingly took the lion's share of the sales, while ZTE and LG rounded out the top five. Overall, Android's the most popular phone operating system, running 64.1 percent of all new handsets, while iOS phones came in second with 18.8 percent. If you feel like you need some more spreadsheets in your life, then read on for the full breakdown.

When it comes to technology and the end of a financial quarter, you can bet your wage there'll be an analyst report or two letting you what's what. And according to Gartner's latest estimates for Western Europe, PCs didn't fare too well in Q2 of this year, with a 2.4 percent decrease in shipments compared with the same period in 2011. Consignments of mobile PCs (read: not tablets) grew by 4 percent, while desktops floundered, dropping 12.8 percent. Of this, a minor growth of 0.4 percent was recorded in consumer PCs, while the professional market decreased by 5.3 percent. Among the big hitters, HP remained at the top of the pile despite losing some market share, and Acer remained in second position with a mild increase in the same. ASUS put in a healthy performance, moving the company up to bronze medal position, while Dell dropped off the podium to fourth. The vendor statistics for the whole region were echoed in France in Germany, but during the quarter Apple managed to break into the top five in the UK market. Meike Escherich, principal analyst at Gartner, attributes the overall performance to economic uncertainty in the region, as well as lackluster demand in the wait for Windows 8 machines. We don't want to spoil all the fun, so a comprehensive breakdown of the numbers awaits you at the source link.

Wondering how the industry fared in the second quarter of 2012? Shipments in the PC sector, which in Canalys' book includes tablets, were higher than ever, totaling 108,708,780 units globally. iPad sales put Apple in the lead, with more than 21 million devices shipped (this figure also includes desktops and notebooks) in Q2, compared to just over 13 million during the year-ago quarter, representing a massive 59.6-percent year-over-year growth. HP, which led the way in Q1, has fallen to the second-place spot, with nearly 13.6 million shipments during the quarter ending yesterday, followed by Lenovo with about 13.2 million, Acer with nearly 10.7 million and Dell with roughly 9.7 computers sold. Manufacturers like ASUS and Samsung are represented in the substantial "others" category, which totals about 40.6 million devices. There's no question that the iPad is behind Apple earning the number-1 slot, and with the upcoming Windows 8 launch, those figures could shift drastically the next time around. Click on through to the source link below for the full Canalys breakdown.

Number-crunching services SuperData Research and Newzoo released reports today forecasting strong growth in the MMO industry. According to the analysts, worldwide spending on MMOs will top $12 billion this year, and that's not all: The companies also predict that this number will increase to a whopping $17.5 billion in 2015.

Other facts released in the reports:

Yearly MMO market growth increased by 14% in the U.S. and 24% in Germany.

The number of MMOs in the field has doubled since the start of 2011.

Twenty-three of the 50 million U.S. MMO gamers spend money on subscriptions or microtransactions, a 3% increase from 2011. The yearly average amount spent is $127.

More German players spend money on MMOs than in the U.S. -- 13% more, to be exact.

Free-to-play revenues in the U.S. now account for 50% of the market, up from 39% in 2010.

Science-fiction MMOs make up to three times as much money as their fantasy counterparts.

SuperData CEO Joost van Dreunen says that the race for gamers' wallets is only getting started: "The current market saturation forces MMO publishers to compete over a finite gamer population."

Whether you love him, hate him, respect him, or ignore him, when Michael Pachter speaks, his voice carries. So it's of note that everyone's favorite videogame analyst is back with a few more controversial remarks concerning the growth -- or lack of it -- in the MMO market.

Speaking at the Evolve Conference, Pachter said, "It looks to me as though the MMO market is as big as it's ever going to be -- as far as subscription MMOs. People willing to play $15 a month, there are six or seven million of them. Period. If Star Wars couldn't expand it, when it's made by BioWare, nothing can do it. That's why Curt Schilling's38 Studios went out of business, because he couldn't get financing."

We've seen so much Ultrabook news recently we're beginning to think they're catching on. Market research firm the NPD Group has stepped in to confirm our suspicions, reporting a 39 percent jump in sales of premium Windows laptops (900 bucks and up) during the first five months of this year, compared with the same period in 2011. Despite a three percent drop in sales of $700-plus Windows notebooks, the Ultrabook share of this bracket increased steadily to nearly 11 percent. The analysts predict sales of these lower-end models will pick up as back-to-school purchases sooth the post-summer blues, with a general boost to the whole Ultrabook market expected when Windows 8 arrives. One thing the figures don't tell us is what impact these sales are having on the revenue of Apple's skinny flagship, but we'd sure like to know. If numbers are your thing, the PR is past the break.